Read full description of the books:

God, do I hate Rabbit Angstrom! How much do I hate him? If I was in a room with Hannibal Lector, the Judge from Blood Meridian, the Joker from Batman, and Rabbit Angstrom, and someone handed me a gun with only 3 bullets, I'd shoot Rabbit three times.

This is the first book by Updike I've read, and his reputation as a writer was well-earned. I'd had a vague idea that this story was about a former hot shot basketball player struggling to adjust to a regular life. I was completely unprepared for this spoiled, impulsive, selfish guy who really only cares about himself and his whims and manages to completely destroy almost everyone around him and still refuses to accept any responsibility for it.

It's obvious that Rabbit isn't meant to be a hero, or even an anti-hero. Updike does a masterful job of tricking you into initially liking Rabbit, even after he leaves his pregnant wife and son and takes up with a sorta-prostitute, but then slowly showing you Rabbit's true nature. And the trick is that it was right in front of you all along.

Brilliant book, and I'd planned to read the other Rabbit novels, but I honestly detested him so much that I don't know if I'll have the stomach for another one in the near future.

Read information about the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.